So if you have your Bible, if you want to join me in Psalm 119, Psalm 119, we're going to be looking at verses 17 through 24. Psalm 119, 17 through 24 tonight. We've been walking through Psalm 119.
I just feel drawn to this chapter to spend some time here. It's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. I find myself always getting so excited when I'm reading through Psalm 119. So tonight we're looking at a message entitled, The Pilgrim's Eyes Are Opened, verse 17 down to verse 24. This is the third stanza in a 22 stanza long psalm that is laid out here. There's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and each one of these stanzas are eight verses long.
There are eight lines in each one of these, and they have each letter of the Hebrew alphabet laid out. And if you were to read this in Hebrew, these eight verses from verse 17 to 24 would all start with the letter Gimel. That would be the starting letter for each one of these verses.
But in English, it's obviously a different letter for us. But let's start in verse number 17. It says, Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word. If you read verse 18 with me, Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
He goes on to say, I am a stranger in the earth. Hide not thy commandments from me. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath into thy judgments at all times. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments. Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies.
Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. Father, we are so thankful to the grace that you have shown us in our salvation, and we pray that you would grant us a mind to understand, to grasp the weightiness and the glory of your word tonight. Let us see and behold you through the pages of Scripture. Help us to know who our God is that we might know who we are and how we're to live for you in obedience in a way that really makes life meaningful and in reality. And help us to live a right life, a life that lines up with what is true and real. And I pray tonight if anyone doesn't know Christ, that tonight would be the night that they would come to repentance and trusting in the only one who can save them, our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray the gospel would penetrate young hearts tonight in our teen ministry, our youth ministry, and just bless and pour out your spirit, Lord. Be with our country, be with those precious lives down in Florida right now, and think about Asheville, North Carolina, Tennessee, and other areas that have been devastated. God, that your mercy and grace and provision would set in each one of those locations. We just lift them up to you in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated. I just wanted to mention we are getting in contact with some local churches in Asheville as well as in Florida. We have a church down in Florida that's right in the path, and we just sent them $2,500 to help with some of the needs down there. So we're trying to minister into some of those places where our resources go specifically into a church where we know the money is going to be used right to minister out the gospel and care and provision and needs that happen in their churches.
So just so you're aware, we are doing that, and so thank you for your faithfulness to give to help us do that. But tonight we're looking at the pilgrims. Eyes are opened. One animal that has just an incredible scale of vision is the eagle. Eagles are just awesome creatures, and the eagle's eye is almost as large as a human's, but its sharpness is at least four times that of a person with perfect vision. And they believe an eagle can probably identify a rabbit moving almost a mile away.
That means an eagle flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet can spot prey over a three-mile range, and they can spot fish several feet into the water, and there can be hundreds of feet below them from where they're flying. And so it's just an amazing thing. I know there's one thing that is probably the one area of our body that we would not want to have hindered. It would be our vision. You know, I would rather have my eyesight than have hearing, right? I mean, if I lost something, Lord, let me keep my eyesight. I want to be able to see. Now, if it came down to tasting and seeing, you know, the order you get, it's like, no, I'm teasing.
But, you know, the pleasure of eating is a blessing. But when I was young, I remember sitting in class, and I started getting bad grades because I could not see the board, and I was embarrassed to get glasses. And so I started getting in trouble with my parents, and I finally had to confess, I can't read what they're writing up there, you know, and finally got some glasses. But then over the years, got some laser vision, and that's a blessing to be able to have better vision, though that only lasts for so long. And if you've gone through some impairments of your eyes, you realize how much of a hindrance that is to your life. And I know there's some different things that can happen as we age with cataracts and different issues with our eyes. And, you know, one day we're going to have a perfect body where you never have to get corrective lenses.
Isn't that going to be great? But what a joy that the Bible tells us when we come to it, it can give us corrective lens. And more than we need physical eyesight, we need spiritual eyesight. We need to be able to see with clarity, we need to be able to see with a sharpness, we need to be able to see with a lucidness that is able to grasp what reality is. Because we live in a world today that so much of what we hear is being manufactured. You know, they talk about misinformation and disinformation and all of that, and I'm like, well, who is the Orwellians that are holding up that standard of what should be true and false, right?
Is this 1984 now? And so I don't want to get too deep into that because I'll say things that I'll get some letters for. But I think it's important to understand that our spiritual sight is the most important thing. And if you think your physical sight is precious, friends, I want to bring a heightened sense to the spiritual acuteness that we need to have in our life.
Because if you don't see what reality is, you're going to be led astray. And tonight we're going to see where a pilgrim's eyes are opened as this author of the psalm just launches into some right perspectives that he begins to have. And we're going to look at six different points from these eight verses. And the first that he begins to see with clarity is the right purpose.
He has a clear vision of what right purpose should be. In verse 17, he says, deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word. Now, the word deal bountifully is is the word gemel, and it means to deal with me in a way that would be beneficial and in an abundant way. It was actually a word that was used when you were weaning a child. And according to Jewish custom, the time when a child is weaned is a cause for celebration. A weaned child was surviving the fragile stage of infancy and can now eat solid food and was no longer breastfed by their mother. And the word is used in Genesis 21, verse 8, when it said the child grew and was gemel, or weaned, and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
So this was a time of celebration for the parents. And so it was also used of fruit or grapes that had ripened, basically, that went from the stage of unbound to fullness to fullness. From a room where we used to have grape vines, like we had like a grape vine growing up, and we'd go out there and eat those grapes.
And you always wanted, when they were nice and full, you didn't want the ones that looked like raisins, right? So and that's what he's saying is the psalmist is trusting God to bring him into fullness. He's saying, dill bountifully, like a weaned child, like a ripened fruit, that I would be at a place of fullness.
Treat me in a way that is good and where I am to where I need to be. And the verb hints at a trust that simply asks God to exercise sovereignty, and he's trusting that God will act in a beneficial way. So to say to God, dill bountifully with thy servant is trusting in God's benevolence.
So he has the right perspective here also of himself. Notice how he views himself in verse 17. He says, dill bountifully with thy abed.
It's a Hebrew word that means a slave or a servant. And he sees himself as one who is owned by God, possessed by God. And all throughout the psalm, you'll notice, if you track it, he calls himself the servant of God, the abed of God, or the slave of God, the one who is owned by his master. You know, before we're saved, we all serve sin. We are saved to fleshly things. We are a slave to Satan, according to Ephesians 2, one through three.
We give in to carnality. Romans 6 20 puts it this way. For when ye were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
What fruit had you then in those things? You are now ashamed, he says, for the end of those things is death. And then he says in Romans 6 22, but now being made free from sin and become servants or doulas of God, you have your fruit unto holiness in the end everlasting life. And that precedes the well-known verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. So when we are servants or slaves to sin, it brings death. When we are servants or slaves to Christ, it brings salvation, eternal life. Also, William Cowper says, Should we not joyfully serve him who hath made all his creatures to serve us and exempted us from the service of all others and hath only bound us to serve himself? Even angels are servants to God's people, ministering spirits. Now, how does the psalmist desire God to deal bountifully with him?
Notice two specific ways. He says in verse 17, That I may live, that I may live. The prayer of the psalmist is a plea to live. You know, I think in the heart of most all people, they don't want to die. You know, I've sat down in the last month with at least two or three different people who knew they were dying and having a conversation with them. And they know they're at the very end. And, you know, even when you know heaven's your home, there are people that are at very much peace. And most of times they've suffered enough and they're just ready to go and they're looking forward to heaven. But it's just there's some anxiousness at some level of just, you know, you've never been through death before facing it. And I've seen over and over an amazing grace of God sustaining grace upon those lives.
It's amazing. But here he's saying, I want to live. Now, the psalmist doesn't say he deserves to live, but that he's dependent on God to keep him living. And it's right to pray for God to allow your life to be prolonged.
That's OK to do. That's a good thing to do because he's the one who keeps us alive. Spurgeon said, It takes great grace to keep a saint alive. Even life is a gift of divine bounty to such undeserving ones as we. Only the Lord can keep us being. And it is his mighty grace which preserves to us the life which we have forfeited by our sin.
So he's asking, deal bountifully with me like a weaned child who comes to age and is in that process that you can rejoice over. Rejoice over me by letting me live. But notice what his motive is.
Notice what his purpose is. That I may live and keep thy word. Now, most people want to continue to live because they want to continue some physical thing in their life. That I may continue to live and provide financially for my home. That I may be able to live and take care of my family.
That I could continue to live and be with my family or loved ones. And there's nothing wrong with those things. It's OK to want to live so that your family is taken care of. It's OK to want to live because you want to be with your family.
Nothing wrong with that. God commands us to work and he commands us to provide for our families and he commands us to love one another, right? Those are all things that we can do. But here you see that he is exalting the purpose of living for God's word that he wants to carry out. Now, those things I just mentioned are ways you can keep the word of God, but that's not the only things.
Because you can be an atheist and want those things. So it's an exalted purpose. I have a longing to live for the sole motive that your word would be prolonged in me. That my life would not only be extended, but your word would be extended in such a case.
By implication, my life allows the word to live in me. Now, according to the psalmist, his motive for a long life was a longer season to allow the word to be prolonged. Like what McLaren said, the psalmist's desire to continue life mainly because it affords him the opportunity of continued obedience. Give me the blessing of a long life so I can keep thy word and it would be long in me. Isn't the greatest life the life lived according to heaven's purpose?
I don't know about you, but I know what my purpose would have been growing up and I know what God's has become and it's so much more fulfilling and wonderful. Our Lord exemplified this with his life. Ask yourself tonight, is your life defined by what God's word would desire of you? A couple of my favorite verses in life are Psalm 40 verse 7 and 8. If you've not memorized these verses, these are worth committing to memory. Psalm 40 verse 7 and 8 is also repeated in Hebrews chapter 10. And it's a testimony of Jesus Christ. He says, then said I lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will.
Oh my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. When the record is opened, because each of us are writing chapters with our life, this year we're 10 months into chapter 2024 of your life. And you've written what you've written this year. It's been done. It's finished.
You can't go back and change September. What's been written is written. And in the volume of the book, is it written of you and I that we have delighted to do his will?
That we have loved to do his will because his law is within our heart? You know, I think that's the life of one who really lived. There's a difference between existing and living, isn't there? I don't want to exist. I want to live.
I want purpose. If I'm just existing, I would rather go to heaven by far. But if I can live for him, and I can live and love my family, then to depart and be with Christ is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you, as Paul said in Philippians 2. Now Jesus' life was a life of total obedience to the Lord. He said in John 4, when they said, did anybody give you anything to eat? He said, my meat, the thing that satisfies me, is to do the will of my Father which sent me in to finish his work.
I am not satisfied with food, I'm satisfied with his will. In John 17 verse 4, he said, I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the work you gave me to do. I don't think that verse right there, if that could be my eulogy, if the epitaph of my life, if on my gravestone that could be carved, I'm not sure that it will be able to be. I don't know that I can arrive at that level, that I've always glorified him on the earth and finished the work.
I'm still 44, right? I would rather die than get out of his will. I pray that too, God. If you could forecast out in the future and you see me falling off the wagon at 52, please take my life at 51. I would much rather die than get out of his will.
Ever, forever, yes. So that right there should be our drive. That's what Jesus was driven toward, wasn't it? He was motivated. He said, I do always those things that please my Father. I've not come to do my will but the will of him that sent me. And so that's the psalmist, that's what's coming out of verse 17.
Dilt bountifully, give me a long life. It's not about what I want, though, it's about you living through me. I long to accomplish more for God.
And so do you want to live a long life for the purpose of living out his will? Verse 17 challenges us to come to the Father as a humble spirit, as a servant. So he comes with the right purpose.
He opens this up with the right motive, right purpose. And secondly, it turns into a right prayer, a right prayer in verse 18. The longing for an extended life to fulfill God's word turns into a prayer to know God's word.
He says in verse 19, open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. The phrase open my eyes is galah in Hebrew. It's probably pronounced more like halah, like they, I can't talk like Jews do.
They like hawk when they talk through, I don't know how to do that in voice inflection. Halah, it means to uncover, to uncover. Moses uses this verb to describe the opening of Balaam's eyes. Remember when Balaam's beating the donkey?
You know, the angel of the Lord comes in the path. Balaam's on the donkey. And the donkey can see it. His eyes have been galah'd. He can see it.
Balaam cannot. He starts beating the donkey. After he beats a donkey for a while and he gets his leg smashed up against the wall, the donkey's like, why do you keep beating me? Even more awkward than the donkey talking to Balaam is Balaam talks back. If a donkey talked to me, I'm jumping and running. I'm like, you know what? I don't know what you've been eating lately. And the donkey's like, ever since I've been your donkey, have I ever been disobedient to you?
You know, he's like, why are you beating me? And then the Bible says God galah'd his eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord and he realized this donkey has more wisdom than me. So this is the idea that what has been veiled is now revealed. What was covered has now been uncovered. What was restricted in their vision has now been loosed. Amos 3.7 says, Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he galahs or he revealeth his secret into his servants the prophets. So it's not a request for physical vision here. He's not saying, hey, I want to be able to see better. He's talking about a spiritual acuteness here, a spiritual vision. This is an acknowledgment from the psalmist that there are vast treasures to be gained in the word that he needs to get to.
Spurgeon says, And what man can open his own eyes since he is born blind? God himself must reveal revelation to each heart. The veil is not the book.
The veil is our heart. When you come to the Bible, you must know that this is essential. This is a presuppositional place you must come to.
You must see yourself as a blind man that needs to have the veil removed. Now, one way to test your understanding and value of God's word is the thirst for knowing it more. Thirsty souls for the word evidence those whose eyes have been opened. When you've seen the treasure, you pursue the treasure. When people are like, well, I just haven't had time to read this week, your eyes are closed. You don't see it.
You just don't. When I don't pursue the word of God, I can tell you I'm blinded. Anybody that doesn't pursue that wealth, what else are you pursuing? What is so valuable?
Pray tell. That in a million years from now, you're going to look back and say, I'm so thankful that I got caught up in those YouTube scrolls. I'm so thankful that I got caught up in that football game. I'm so thankful that I got caught up in all the other yard work I did.
It's nice to actually have some yard work, actually, to do. Now, one way to test that is by seeing your pursuit. And you know this psalmist, nine times in Psalm 119, asked God to teach me your statutes. Psalm 119, 33, Teach me, O Yahweh, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto thee, and give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law.
And I shall observe it with my whole heart. And he says, open my eyes, he says, to behold wonderful things out of thy law. Wonderful, pala in the Hebrew, which means difficult. Things that are hard. The idea of something that's so wonderful, you could never conceive it. It's extraordinary, it's miraculous.
It's beyond your power to do. In the Old Testament, most of the occurrence of pala refers to acts that were performed by Yahweh, expressing actions that are beyond the bounds of human power and expectations, when he did things that were just beyond human understanding. Open my eyes to behold miraculous, wonderful, beyond human ability to grasp and conceive and attain truths that Yahweh has done. I want to see that.
And where are they found? He says, wonderful things out of thy law. They're out of your law, they're out of your word. David Guzik reminds us that it isn't the word that needs changing as if it's obscure. He says, we are the ones who are veiled and can't understand the word of God apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. You know, Paul's eyes were veiled for who Christ was. I mean, he heard of Jesus, right?
He heard of him. But when he knew Christ, when he came to know Christ, he became blinded, the Bible says. It's funny, his physical vision was impaired, but his spiritual vision exploded with brightness. Better to be physically blind than spiritually blind. Better to have no eyes and see Jesus than to have eyes and to not see who he is.
But the Bible says that the scales came off of Paul's eyes in Acts 9. And this is known in theology as the doctrine of illumination. It's one of my favorite doctrines. It's in the realm of bibliology, the study of the Scriptures, the doctrine of illumination. Illumination can be defined as the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit, of God to the reader of Scripture to help him understand truths from the Scriptures. He doesn't turn the light on to the Bible, he turns the light on in our mind to see it.
It's kind of like reading in the dark, illumination is God turning the light on so that we can actually have eyes now to see it. Did you know Paul prayed for this to the Ephesians in Ephesians 1, 17 and 18? Ephesians 1, 17 and 18, listen to what God says here. He says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, leading up to that in verse 16, he says, and this I pray. This was his prayer and he says in verse 17 what it is. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.
Photizo is the Greek word. That he would give your understanding illumination. That he would bring to light in your understanding that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and the riches of his glory of the inheritance of his saints. His prayer was that they would understand spiritual truth, that they would grasp it. Paul Spurgeon, speaking to his students in his pastor's college, said if there is to be a divine result from God's word, the Holy Ghost must go forth with it. As surely as God went before the children of Israel when he divided the Red Sea, as surely as he led them through the wilderness by the pillar of cloud of fire, and so surely must the Lord's powerful presence go with his word if there is going to be any blessing from it. Do you and I come to Scripture with that expectation? Or do we just get the verse of the day on our phone, read it, and think we're going to get something out of it? Is that really treasuring it?
Is that holding it up as like our chief treasure? Now, it's okay to have a verse of the day. I'm not trying to bust on that. Don't cancel that. Pull that up, read it, saturate yourself.
But I'm saying give it more. Read the verse of the day so long until you memorize it. You say, well, it's hard for me to get through a chapter. Then soak in and set time aside for whatever you read. It's not the amount of reading you do.
It's the value of the reading that you do. Adrian Rogers, the great old preacher, said of Psalm 119, 18, he said, have you ever prayed this? He says, have you ever thought, well, I can just go to the Bible and pull out the truth out of the Bible.
Adrian Rogers says, let me tell you, friend, you cannot. He said, you may know Greek and not know God. You may know Hebrew and not know him. I don't care who you are in that seminary or in that Sunday school class unless you lay that intellectual pride in the dust and pray this prayer. Open down mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. You will not know the God of this book. I want to tell you, my friend, it took a supernatural miracle to reveal it to us. It took a supernatural miracle to write it, and it takes a supernatural miracle for us to understand it.
This is true. Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 16th century, says, the Bible cannot be understood simply by intellect but only by the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 16, 16, Simon Peter, when asked by Jesus, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Simon Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that great declaration was replied from Jesus to Simon, and he says in verse 17, And Jesus answered and said, Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonah, which is what Barjona means, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
It wasn't a human being that told you that. God in heaven showed you that. In Luke 24, the resurrected Christ reveals his resurrected life form to the disciples in the upper room. It says they did not believe for joy.
They were just overwhelmed with the resurrected Christ. It was too impossible. It's like the phrase, it's too good to be true. We can't believe our eyes. It's too much. It's impossible.
You can't be here. They were so elevated. It was so impossible. It was so miraculous.
It was so hard and wondrous. Luke 24, 44, it says, And he, or Jesus, said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me. Verse 45, Then opened he their understanding that he might understand the Scriptures.
That is a statement that is so magnanimous that it's just beyond words. They're literally in the room. They don't believe their physical eyes. They can't believe it.
They don't understand it. They don't get it until Jesus reaches in and turns the light on inside of them. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. His words were not able to be received until illumination happens.
Did you see it? If the best teacher can't be understood by the best pupils, the disciples in the upper room who followed him for three years can't get it, until he reaches in and does the work of illumination, what do we think we are sitting before a Bible in a casual spirit with a cup of coffee and we haven't humbled ourselves to the point of pleading with God to open our eyes to understand and reveal your truth to me, God? We are so dependent upon the work of the Holy Spirit.
God is not wanting to show us it. But I can tell you this, we must come with a great level of humility. I think that people sometimes don't realize how people say, come to the Lord, you can approach his throne with boldness. That doesn't mean arrogance.
That just means you actually can come. You know the Bible says, God is in heaven, here are we on earth, let our words be few. Ecclesiastes says that. Make sure you remember who you're talking to. You may not want to get into his presence and just start into prayer like this fast and rushed thing. Thank you for this food, I want to bless you.
It'd be better to stop. Give yourself just a few seconds to know that you're getting ready to step into the throne room and you are in the throne room day and night because he never leaves us but it is a sense of holy awe before him. That's why he says, when you come in prayer, this is how you should pray, our Father who art in heaven. Let me be reminded at that exalted place, hallowed, hagios, root word, holy, exalted, lifted up like no one else. That's who he is. Your name is so exalted.
Let me think about that for a moment. I think about Lydia in Acts 16 and it says in verse 14, And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple in the city of Thyatira, it said, which worshiped God, heard us. Why did she hear you? It says, whose heart the Lord opened.
And because he opened her heart, she attended unto the things which were spoken of fault. You understand, the pastor who thinks he's got to tell 15 stories, that he, you know, if I start breaking down verse by verse and I start, you know, getting too technical about the passage of scripture, if I start getting too biblical, if I start laying too many scriptures, it's going to be confusing. You think it's going to be your ability and your contriving of some method to get people to know the book?
You think that's up to you? The arrogance inside of pulpits today is audacious. There needs to be a humility of saying, let me unleash the word of God and it is a divine work of the Holy Spirit that enlightens the minds and if that doesn't happen, it benefits no one. It's not the talent of the preacher. If people can get, if I can lead them to Christ and they're not heavens converts, they're mine.
Does that make sense? So if you ever grasp some great truth from the word of God, boast on Him. Praise God the Lord opened that up to me. Praise God the Lord. And if you're a teacher, you can't pass on what you don't have and you're going to need the Holy Spirit to teach you to teach your children, to teach your own life, to teach your family, to teach your co-workers and then you're going to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit to teach them too.
Is this making sense? The Holy Spirit is the one who reveals this. That's why He says, open my eyes to behold wondrous things. You know, Jesus said in John 14, 26, John 16, 13, the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He'll guide you into all truth. Now there is a enemy of illumination and it's Satan. And listen to what 2 Corinthians 4, 4 says.
This is what He does. It says, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Satan blinds people's minds, blinds their minds. The God of this world blinds their minds.
He doesn't want them to see it. So when you talk to somebody and it's like, hello? You ever talk to somebody and you're like, are you ever shocked by what people believe? It's like, how do they believe that? How do they believe that?
And then how do they not believe this? It's so clear. Just remember, be patient. Be patient. It's not your skill. It's not your apologetics. It's not your talent that's going to open their eyes. It's the divine work of the Holy Spirit.
Get dependent on Him. God, open their eyes. Let them see it. Let them see it. Let them hear it.
Let them know it. I tell you, what won't allow people to see the truth is when you and I get frustrated with them. We're like, you bonehead, why don't you get this? What do you mean you don't believe it? There's a donkey in the Old Testament. Are you smarter than a donkey? King James, there's a synonym for that.
I'm not going to use it. Now, God has given to us His word. He desires for you and I to understand it, to know it, to share it, some keys to understanding it, pray for understanding it, pray to understand it. Make Psalm 119 18 and verse 33, 34 verses like that essential to your prayer life. God, help me to understand it. Open my eyes. I'm not going to get your word this morning if you don't reveal it to me.
Let me soak it in, saturate it, show me your truth. Now, I do believe people have learned the word of God who have not prayed specific prayers like that for sure because your heart came to Him hungering. You lived the prayer.
Dependent, right? I mean, you came to Him trusting in Him, leaning on Him, but I can tell you who He does not reveal it to is the proud and arrogant and boastful. That's why Jesus said, blessed are your eyes, for they see. He says, I have not revealed it to the wise and prudent, but I've revealed it to babes.
So God uses preaching also to illuminate minds. Acts 26, 16 says this. Jesus told Paul, He said, Arise, stand upon thy feet. I appear unto you for this purpose to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou have seen and the things which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom I now send thee.
Look what He says. This is what Jesus told Paul was going to happen as he went out and preached. He said, you will open their eyes, you will turn them from darkness to light, from the power of who? Satan to who? Because when you take somebody from Satan's realm, they go from darkness to light, from Satan to God.
He overcomes that. And what a joy that is. What a joy to see somebody get saved and it's like the light's on. You know, Sunday, Rick's testimony in the early service was so wonderful and he's sharing and he's giving his life to Christ.
He's so on fire, learning the word of God. And Lori Santos, her family was here, several family members from South America, just a whole row of family members, so wonderful. And just the light's on, she came to Christ. I was sharing with that late service, if you weren't here in the late service Sunday, we had a precious young lady in her 20s. Just to kind of give you a background of the story, somebody left one of our little two by three or whatever the size they are, cards that we tell you to invite people to church with. You can invite people, has the gospel presentation on information about the church, but it's just to go out and hand one of those out. It's just, hey, you have a church home, love to invite you to church.
Somebody left that on a stand out at the base of one of the buildings somewhere and was just sitting on, and he saw that and he looked the church up and he came to church and he brought his friend, Lori. Through that, she'd been going through difficulties which he shared in her testimony and she started coming to church and learning the word of God and she ends up getting saved radically, just joy filled. God gave her peace. She'd been going through a lot of heavy stuff on her heart. She's so filled with joy and peace and building relationships and friendships here and so excited. And now there's like 10 visitors here Sunday just to hear her testimony.
And you know what was awesome? At the end of testimonies, we always have them share what a life verse is and both of them shared the exact same verse from early service to late service. And I don't know how many tens of thousands of verses are in the Bible, but they both picked that same verse. And it was like 2nd Timothy 1.7, is that right? Yeah, and it's just a wonderful verse. And so just know that that's the work of God. That's the work of God.
I can't open those eyes. You can't do that, but God does that and he uses people like us who say, God, can you take a track this week that I could invite somebody and through that, could somebody come to you? Could you allow me to be a light to them?
Let your light so shine before men, right? Eternity's being changed. Eternity's being changed. And what is more important this week than that? I think all of us could leave today and grab one of those tracks and say, hey, I'm gonna at least invite somebody.
I'm gonna share somebody. I'm gonna say, hey, anybody told you about Jesus Christ and shine some light in this world. We are living in dark days, but there is light. There's been a joyful sense of revival that I've been seeing happening, just a moving of God in a lot of churches that I associate with that we're seeing a lot of people coming to Christ.
So thankful. Let me go to a third truth here, the right perspective, right perspective in verse 19. Look at the result of his eyes being opened. He says in verse 19, I am a stranger in the earth. First thing he sees is like, hey, I don't even belong to this place. This isn't my home. The ultimate reality has been revealed to him and he's like, hey, I'm a foreigner here. I am a pilgrim.
This isn't my place of residency. Christians, we are pilgrim strangers. As Christians, we are literally on foreign soil. Hebrews 11, 13 says, these all died in faith, not having received the promise, but seeing them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. In the Old Testament, they said, you know what? We're strangers and pilgrims on this earth.
This is not our home. 1 Peter 2, 11, dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. I love what Charles Bridges said. He said, the pilgrim spirit is the pulse of the soul. All of us are traveling to eternity. The worldling is at home in the earth, the pilgrim only by constraint.
We're being constrained to stay here. You say, well, I kind of like being here, Pastor Josh. I can tell you it's because you and I don't see heaven right now. If we could see heaven in Jesus, can I say something that is a truism, and truism is a word? If you and I could see Jesus in heaven, we would immediately say, let me be there now. But what about my family?
You would love Jesus so much more than your family, you would rather be with him than them. That's true. That's the part that you'll be like, oh, yeah, it's true.
I'm serious. But God's gracious, so he doesn't show us, in some sense, all that he is, because we would, I think, become so miserable of being here. It's like, oh, man. We would live with such anticipation. But I think that we see heaven through the eyes of scripture and through the eyes of Paul, who said, the sufferings that I've gone through are not even worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Whatever you and I are going through on the earth, just realize this is a brief journey.
This is a very brief journey. Now, he has a continued plea for a complete unveiling of the word. He says, I am a stranger in the earth, verse 19. Hide not thy commandments from me. Now, why does he say hide not thy commandments? Does God hide commandments from people? You know what the answer is?
Yes. Yes, he does. God will hide his word from people. He will not reveal it to some. God does not reveal his word to everyone. In fact, he's thankful that he doesn't.
Do you know that? God is thankful that he doesn't show everyone his word. Matthew 11, 25.
At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has, what's the word? Hid these things from what kind of people? Wise and prudent.
That word is the idea of someone who is understanding. And has revealed them unto babes. And Matthew 13, verse 10, it says this. And the disciples came and said, why do you speak to them in parables?
What are you doing these parables for? And he answered and said unto them, because it's given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to them it's not given. He's veiling it from them.
Why is he doing that? Because God doesn't reward pride. He judges it. He won't give treasure to those who malign it, those who mock it. He doesn't do it. You don't want the truth?
Then I'll keep it from you. He doesn't force the wall of truth in on them. In Matthew 13, 15, he says, for this people's heart is waxed gross. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes, they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, should understand with their heart, should be converted and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see in your ears, for they hear. If you hear the truth tonight, you see it, and you long for it, blessed are your eyes.
Blessed are your eyes. That is a divine pronouncement, a divine oracle of will upon you. That is one of the things that the Bible talks about. There's pronouncements of blessings and judgment. When he says blessed are you, you need to understand that is a divine declaration from Jesus as a prophet of blessing upon those who heed it. That's why he says blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Those are divine statements of blessing upon those who would listen and obey those things. Among the Jews, they understood those prophetic announcements. The opposite of that is prophetic oracles of woe. That's why he says woe unto you, woe unto you. Those are statements of judgment for those who did not.
So we see here the eyes were opened. He recognizes he's a pilgrim on the earth. He's overwhelmed with desire for the word of God. He has a right priority and now he has a right pursuit in verse 20. I love verse 20. It says, my soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. This is the reason for the prayer in verse 19.
Don't hide it. I am longing for it. My soul breaks. The word means to break or to crush, to be like brought to rubble.
I mean just crushed. I am so crushed with longing for this. And he says for the longing.
And this is intense desire. This is what his, if you read verse 20 again, my soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments. The word judgments there is one of the synonyms, one of the eight synonyms for the word of God. He's saying my soul is longing for that judgment, for that truth that you possess. What an encouragement to read about a soul that is so longing for the word of God. I know when I get around people that are so passionate for the truth of God's word, it just encourages me. You ever get around somebody who's memorizing scripture and nobody challenged them to do it?
That's convicting. It's like why are you doing that? Do you do that every week? Oh, like your class isn't challenging you? Oh, you're just doing that?
Oh, okay. Must value the word of God. They must cherish it. When's the last time you memorized a verse because somebody did not challenge you? I mean it's hard today to get people to memorize a verse because they are challenged, let alone not being challenged. What a statement on the condition of America's churches, right?
A.W. Tozer in his great book, The Pursuit of God, says, Oh God, I have tasted thy goodness and it had both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I'm painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire, oh God, the triune God. I want to want thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made more thirsty still.
Show me your glory. I pray you so that I may know you indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
Then give me grace to rise and follow you from this misty lowland where I have wondered so long. I mean who prays like that anymore? Get around old saints like that.
Soak them up instead of the evening news or the morning news. Watch God open your eyes up. Paul had such a hungry spirit in pursuit of God. He's like Philippians 3, he says, If any other man thinketh he hath whereof to boast in the flesh, he says, I more. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrew, who is touching the law of Pharisee concerning his ill persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. He said, But what things were gain to me? Those I count of loss for Christ's sake, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but scubulon in the Greek, dung that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God the law of faith, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if that by any means I may attain into the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained or already perfect, but I follow after if by any means I may apprehend that for which for also I am apprehended of Christ.
And he just keeps pressing on to this, longing. Get around people like that in the scriptures, in history. I was reading about George Whitefield and I realized how pathetic of a preacher I am.
George Whitefield is an impossibility. He's the most impossible preacher that ever lived on the planet earth. He preached an average of six to eight hours a day, seven days a week for 34 years. In the 18th century, traveling by horseback and donkey, traversed the oceans I think 14 times from England to here. It was like I think four to five months in each trip.
Cold, hot, rainy, doesn't matter. His last message was in New Hampshire. He preached a message like how do you know that you're saved and he was just really challenging people in the gospel. He was more known in the 13 colonies by faith than George Washington was. He would go to places like Boston when Boston only had about 20 to 30,000 people. 30,000 would at times come out to hear him preach.
They'd come into the fields to hear him. Benjamin Franklin said he had never heard anybody like him. He would hang on to every word. Benjamin Franklin said I would listen to every single word. Franklin was not a Christian. He was a deist. But he said he'd never heard anybody.
Every single word he spoke was captivating. John Edwards who preached the most powerful sermon in the history of probably the United States and I don't know how far you could go with that. Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
He went to hear George Whitfield preach and he went and wept through the entire sermon. Just get around stories of people and just realize that you know what, God can and wants to use our lives. If we get serious with God, God will get serious with us. But we wake up in the morning and we got a news feed to read and we got this to deal with and we want to scroll through Facebook and God says there's treasure, there's wealth, there's glory, there's strength, there's strength.
You're a stranger, you're a pilgrim, your life is a vapor, it's brief, it's nothing. Do what eternally matters. But I got baseball and my kids got T-ball practice on Sunday morning.
I don't know anybody that has T-ball practice right now so don't write me a letter if your kid is. Last couple things I'm just going to wrap up very briefly, I got to be done. He had the right persecution in verse 21-23. He says thou has rebuked the proud that are cursed which do err from thy commandment.
It's a blessing God judges those who err because if he didn't bring judgment it would validate that he doesn't make it, it's not that big a deal to err. So he rebukes them and he says in verse 22 remove from me reproach and contempt for I have kept thy testimonies. Princes also did sit and speak against me but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. This psalmist was facing heat, persecution, but it was right persecution.
Sometimes we can face trials in life because we're foolish. But sometimes we face persecution in life because we're faithful. Be faithful. Remove from me reproach and contempt. Remove from me being scorned. Those who despise and shame me.
Remove that. It's okay to pray that. Listen, I don't want to go through all that intense persecution. But as I go through it he says in verse 23 I'm going to meditate on your statutes. He had the right persecution and I could say more about that but let me just wrap up with the last thought. He had the right path in verse 24. In the midst of persecution he stays on the right path and he finds the right delight and counsel. He says thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. He doesn't veer off, he doesn't allow the trials, he doesn't let the trauma of persecution and difficulty even at the ranks of princes coming against him. He delighted himself in the Lord and that was enough.
He didn't have earthly companions but he had the counsel of the world that could be his companion. So tonight I just want to bring us here to this place where we ask ourselves, have you made yourself too at home on the earth? Have you gotten too comfortable? Have you gotten to a place where you're just like making much of that which is temporal and a little of that which is eternal? Just know tonight that this life is but a vapor and I believe the Lord's return is very near and we need to be busy about what matters for eternity, amen.
And tonight I pray that if God spoke in your heart whether at your seat or at an altar that you would just take some time to say God help me to really set my focus. I sat down with a precious family today and we just reflected on the eulogy of a life that has now been gone into eternity. And almost every time I sit down with a family they'll say things like, you know, if we knew it was going to be this soon, we would have done this, this and this.
And most of the time they've already done, you know, I mean, they've gone the extra length to pour into the person doing different things. But what it does, though, is when people die it gives us clarity of what really matters. And I'm going to tell you, there's a day in our life, in our existence, that we're going to say, you know what, what really mattered, I don't know if I saw it as clear back then as I did now.
And what I'm wanting to do is just to where our clarity would be like that of an eagle's where we're like, man, I am steadfast and focused on what really matters. And the way you know that is by what heaven says. So take the word of God and say that's what really matters. Let me sink my life into that and I will have known that I lived in the truth. Don't be persuaded by the wastefulness of this world. Give your time to that which is mattering for eternity. This week somebody should hear the gospel from our life or lips. Amen. Let's be a light in this world. And so let's all stand tonight. ...
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-15 12:56:39 / 2024-10-15 13:19:11 / 23